Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. One example routing solution to LLN challenges is a protocol called Routing Protocol for LLNs or “RPL,” which is a distance vector routing protocol that builds a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG, or simply DAG) in addition to a set of features to bound the control traffic, support local (and slow) repair, etc. The RPL architecture provides a flexible method by which each node performs DODAG discovery, construction, and maintenance.
Furthermore, the traffic routing on the DAG is often directed to (or from) a Field is Area Router (FAR) in the LLN, where the FAR in turn may direct the traffic over a backhaul link, e.g., to a management system. When a FAR experiences a connectivity failure, for example, due to a planned maintenance or a malfunction, disruption occurs in the routing topology, and rebuilding of the LLN topology may be time consuming. In particular, the rebuilding process rebuilds all the states that were previously stored in the FAR prior to the connectivity failure (e.g., useful information about the characteristics of its network), causing further delay in restoring connectivity.